


Biphasic Reaction

by renecdote



Series: hc_bingo 2017 [7]
Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Allergies, Damian is just having a terrible day okay, Gen, He's miserable, Hurt/Comfort, Surprisingly not angsty, allergic reactions, some fluff I guess, tim is a good brother
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-18
Updated: 2017-11-18
Packaged: 2019-02-03 18:11:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12753519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/renecdote/pseuds/renecdote
Summary: People may have allergic reactions all the time and be fine, but they can also die from them. He has a flash of sudden, morbid curiosity about what the exact statistics for fatal allergic reactions are.





	Biphasic Reaction

**Author's Note:**

> For the “allergic reaction” square on my hurt/comfort bingo card. Two anons requested Damian, so have some Damian feeling extremely miserably. I don’t know how this came to be 2.5k words but I’m blaming my own irritation with allergies which I channelled into writing it. Timeline wise, I imagine this is a few years down the track when we’re allowed to have nice things like Tim and Damian not hating each other. Tim is probably very early twenties and Damian is mid teens.

It all starts with fear toxin. Robin’s rebreather gets broken during a fight with Scarecrow and he gets a lungful of the toxic gas. It's only eight seconds later that Red Robin administers the antidote, but eight seconds is long enough. Although his mind recovers quickly from the toxin, it is, unusually, his body which does not leave the encounter with Scarecrow unscathed.

He sleeps fitfully and wakes only a few hours later feeling as though his head is full of pressure and his skin is too tight for his body. His eyes watering is an inconvenience but it's the itching of his nose that almost drives him insane. No amount of rubbing or scratching provides more than a nanosecond of relief. All it does is make his nose bright red; a perfect match for the splotches of colour dabbled across his cheeks.

Damian expects Tim to laugh at him when he shuffles downstairs and into the kitchen, maybe make one of those teasing Rudolf jokes Richard does when any of his siblings have colds. But although a smile quirks Tim’s lips, it's fleeting and sympathetic rather than amused.

“I didn't know you got hay fever,” he says, in the tone of one who has found a fellow sufferer. 

Damian glowers at him. He sniffs and rubs at his nose but it doesn't deter him from snapping, “I do not get hay fever.”

Tim raises an eyebrow, sharp eyes cataloguing Damian’s visible symptoms, probably guessing at the non-visible ones. His entire countenance screams disbelief but he just says, “Right. My mistake.” And behind his eyes, Damian imagines cogs turning as his brother puzzles over the mystery of what is afflicting him.

Another few hours pass, training and studying, but the irritation does not go away. The itching of his eyes, nose and skin is a constant distraction. One that makes him fumble blocks he should be able to do in his sleep and miscalculate hits he’s been able to execute perfectly since he was five. Tim watches him the whole time, sometimes blatantly, more often out of the corner of his eye. Damian isn’t sure what his older brother is working on but the files and data on the screen look suspiciously like Damian’s medical file and the blood sample taken the night before.

The Bat Computer’s digital clock ticks over to half past noon and Damian sees Tim stretch and stand up. Lunchtime, which means Damian should head upstairs as well. But first. He moves over to the computer as soon as Tim has left the Cave, scanning the still-open documents for any clue about why his blood is suddenly so interesting. He scratches idly at his neck as he reads, but Tim’s notes are either in code or some kind of shorthand only he can understand because it just leaves Damian feeling more confused. He will just have to ask his brother why he’s analysing components of Damian’s blood side-by-side with Crane’s fear toxin when he’s clearly no longer being affected by it.

Tim gives him the answer before he can even open his mouth. “I think you’re allergic to something new Crane added to his formula,” he says. Then he tosses a box of pills across the counter. “It doesn’t seem serious so this should help.”

It's a simple allergy medication. Even though the packaging warns him it will make him drowsy and Damian hates having his mind clouded, he's so desperate for relief that he downs the recommended dose quickly.

“I’m going to make sandwiches,” Tim says, heading toward the fridge to start pulling out ingredients. His nose wrinkles a bit as he passes Damian. “Why don’t you shower first? You stink.”

Damian mutters an insult in return, but he does head up to his bedroom to rinse off the sweat of his workout and change clothes before lunch. When he takes off his shirt, he pauses, prodding carefully at a discoloured patch of skin near the middle of his chest. Small red bumps have formed sometime between getting changed for training and now, their heads turning white where he presses.

It’s a little alarming, but knowing that he is apparently allergic to something he was exposed to last night soothes his concern. People have allergic reactions all the time and they’re fine. It is merely uncomfortable. Incredibly so. He curls his hands into fists, fingernails digging into the soft flesh of his palm, in an attempt not to scratch. Hopefully the allergy medication will kick in soon.

—

Six hours later he feels no better. He almost thinks he feels worse, but surely that’s just in his head. He takes another dose of the antihistamines, hoping his body just needs more of the drug for it to work its magic. Ten minutes after that he's starting to feel really unwell. His skin feels like it's on fire, a million ants scuttling all over him. It's impossible, something out of one of Crane’s hallucinations. And Damian is sure the fear toxin is out of his system but it feels like the the ants have wriggled there way inside his stomach and are scurrying around in there as well. 

“Is it supposed to feel like this?” he asks, squirming in his seat as though movement will somehow alleviate his discomfort. He rubs, almost absently, at his sternum, trying to figure out whether it’s his stuffy nose or if it really is harder to take a deep breath. Perhaps he is getting a cold as well?

Drake looks over from where he's now fiddling with the oven, preparing to heat up whatever Alfred has left them for dinner. “Feel like what?”

Damian shrugs. He's not sure how to explain the bumps crawling across his skin under his shirt, or the nausea swirling in his gut, or the way he's not really cold but he can't seem to stop shivering.

“It'll take a bit to kick in,” Tim says, misinterpreting him feeling worse for just not feeling better yet. 

“I think I need to lie down,” Damian says. He's pillowed his head on his arms, but it's not quite enough. It must be the drowsy component of the medication, he thinks, which is making him feel so woozy.

“Okay,” Tim agrees. He’s frowning at a note Alfred stuck to the fridge with instructions now, back turned to Damian so he doesn’t see the way he sways when he stands. “This won’t take long so don’t go far. Just lie on one of the couches in the den or something. We can put on a movie and eat in there; Alfred doesn’t have to know.”

Damian collapses on the couch with relief, barely remembering to kick off his shoes before pulling the blanket off the back and curling into a ball. Lying there in the silent room, he can hear the wheeze as he inhales and exhales.  _ That’s not good _ , he thinks. He should probably tell Tim there’s something wrong with his breathing. But sitting up makes him feel lightheaded and he feels like he might throw up if he moves right now so he’s just going to lay here for a while longer. Just until he feels a bit better.

—

He drifts back into awareness when something cool brushes over his forehead, gone before he can feel any pleasure from the sensation. Then the sound of a voice carrying on a conversation nearby filters in. Tim must be on the phone, he realises, because there are pauses for replies that Damian can't hear. He wonders who he's talking to.

“I don't know.” Tim’s voice sounds unnaturally high and panicky. Something must be really wrong. “I just gave him phenergan. It should have made him better, not worse.” A pause. “No. I don’t know. What should I do?” Whatever the other person says must be reassuring because his voice is considerably calmer when he ends the call with, “Okay. Yeah. Yes, I can do that. Thank you, Alfred. I’ll let you know what happens.”

Then a hand shakes Damian’s shoulder. “Damian. Come on, I can see you’re awake. I need you to sit up for a second.”

Damian groans. It can’t have been long since he fell asleep and he’s reluctant to give up the blissful, if temporary, relief unconsciousness provides. But Tim is insistent and Damian is given little choice in being forced upright and submitted to an examination of his health.

A thermometer is stuck in his mouth first which. Oh. He must have developed a fever. No wonder he feels so out of it. Breathing through his still-stuffy nose takes concentration he doesn’t quite have and Damian rubs at his chest, fingers digging into his skin through the thin material of his t-shirt, as though clawing his chest open is the only way to force enough air into his lungs. The thermometer is removed and Damian sucks in a breath that seems to get lost somewhere before it reaches lungs. 

Tim grabs his hands and holds them still so he can pull his sweatshirt up. He winces. “Were these here before?” he asks, drawing Damian's attention to the hives patterning his chest with angry splotches of red. The rash has grown, spreading down to his naval, up over his right should and around his sides. There are fresh scratches in places, some dribbling blood, from where he’d been scratching while asleep. 

“Since lunchtime,” Damian says. “After I took the allergy medication.” And then he realises what Tim has obviously realised. “Oh.”

“Yeah, ‘oh’,” Tim mutters. “What else are you feeling? Are you having trouble breathing?”

Damian hesitates because the simple answer is yes, but it’s not like he  _ can’t _ breathe, it’s just not as easy as it normally is. A breathing exercise or two to remind his lungs of their superior oxygen capacity and he’ll probably be fine in a few minutes. Maybe. 

“Damian.” Tim puts a hand on his shoulder. His eyes are serious. “This is important, okay? I need to know whether you’re having trouble breathing, and I don’t need you to be tough about it, I need you to be honest.”

Damian nods. He’s sure, for a brief second, that he sees panic flicker across Tim’s face but it’s gone so fast he wonders if it was really there at all. Then Tim stands up, looking around with a sense of poorly masked urgency as he says, “I'm taking you to the hospital. Where are your shoes?”

Damian’s shoes are wedged under the end of the couch. He pulls them out and tugs them on. Tim mutters the whole time he drags him out to the car about this being a terrible time for all the other, more responsible, adults in the family to be away. It’s stress muttering. Damian has spent enough time around Tim on cases to know that it means he’s hiding behind irritation so he doesn’t give into panic.

Unfortunately, since he knows what it means, it only ratchets up his own panic. People may have allergic reactions all the time and be fine, but they can also die from them. He has a flash of sudden, morbid curiosity about what the exact statistics for fatal allergic reactions are. 

“Should-“ His voice falters at the end of the word and he clears his throat to hide it. “Should you have called an ambulance?”

Tim just gives him a flat look as he slams the car into drive and accelerates down the driveway. “Are you forgetting that Batman taught me how to drive?” he asks, and it sounds like he’s genuinely concerned that Damian is having memory problems. “I can get us there faster.” He must see something in Damian’s face (although Damian doesn’t know  _ how _ since he doesn’t look away from the road they’re now turning onto) because he adds, “Relax, Damian, you’re not going to die.”

(He doesn’t say it, but they both know he means  _ I won’t let you. _ )

They may have both grown and matured past the antagonist relationship they used to have, enough that Alfred and Bruce feel comfortable leaving him in Tim’s care for a week without worrying they’ll come back to bloodshed. Enough, even, that Damian is happy to be left in Tim’s care. But it still goes against every paranoid instinct his mother honed in him to trust Tim’s words without supporting evidence. 

He does it anyway.

\--

Tim gets them to the hospital in record time. Damian doesn’t die. (“What did I tell you? You’re fine.” “Shut up, you’re the one who was panicking.” “I was not-“) He does spend several boring hours there, though, while blood is taken, the necessity of an oxygen mask is argued over and an IV is put in with steroids to combat the allergic reaction. It’s an overall unpleasant experience. And it pains him to admit that it’s only  _ unpleasant _ instead of  _ unbearable _ because his brother is there to keep him company. 

“I could read to you,” Tim suggests when Damian complains for the sixth time. It’s hard to tell whether he’s being sarcastic or not. 

It might, possibly, cure his boredom though so Damian squints at him suspiciously and asks, “What are you reading?”

“An article discussing psychologically sound explanations of alien encounters and the history of UFO abductions as a response to Pyrrhonic Skepticism.”

Damian makes a face. It’s only partially because his nose is still itching like crazy but anytime he scratches Tim pokes him with a pen. Mostly it’s because  _ what the hell Tim. _ And also, “Aliens aren’t real.”

“Your best friend is an alien,” Tim points out without looking up from what is  _ clearly _ an enthralling paper. He’s even making  _ notes _ .

“ _ Half _ alien,” Damian throws back.   


And so it goes. Not the most stimulating conversation, but Tim has this way of getting under his skin just enough to keep his attention (it would be a useful skill if it could be weaponized). The banter keeps his mind distracted from the discomfort he’s feeling. Until four hours later, when everyone is sure he’s not going to have another reaction, they’re allowed to leave 

Tim drives them back home at a much more sedate pace and it’s enough to lull Damian toward sleep in the passenger seat. Rest is put off when they reach the Manor, though, in favour of first going into his medical file to make a note in all caps: ALLERGIC TO ANTIHISTAMINES. Because there is no way in hell he wants to go through that again. 

He feels a flicker of warmth in chest when he realises it’s already been done. In detail. It makes Damian wonder whether Drake saying he was reading about aliens in the hospital was just to throw him off. To avoid admitting that he was doing thorough research on antihistamine allergies to avoid a repeat of the day’s discomfort (and, they will both admit only to themselves, worrying). He supposed he’ll never know. After all, no matter how much they show it, neither of them are particularly good at saying they care.

**Author's Note:**

> Tumblr is [here](tantalum-cobalt.tumblr.com).


End file.
